Welcoming a New Year

Tetsuo Yamakawa

President
The ITU Association of JapanS

incere wishes for a Happy New Year!
I assumed the position of President in December oflast year, and I hope you will all continue to support meas you did the previous President, Toshiyuki Minami.
In 2020, the global spread of the new coronavirus pandemic
had a great effect on social and economic activity, and it is still
not subsiding around the world. The contagion has also spread inJapan, through urban and rural areas alike, and although measures
to prevent the spread continue, businesses have had to adjust to thecorona era, with remote work, staggered work hours and online
meetings in wide use. We hope that the New Year will be a goodone, full of vitality.
Reflecting back on the year, meetings and events with theITU and APT that we were involved in last year were alsoaffected. The ITU-T SG9 assembly (Japan) planned for April
was suspended, ITU Telecom World (Vietnam) in September
and WTSA (India) in November were postponed, and the APTGeneral Assembly/Management Committee (Japan) in December
were held virtually. Under these circumstances, Katsunori Kondo
was elected the secretary general of APT at the General Assemblyin December. May I offer my congratulations, and best wishes forthese activities in the future.
On October 6, we held the “Celebration of World
Telecommunication and Information Day.” This is normally heldin May each year, but was postponed to October and scaled down
due to the pandemic. In the ceremony, Yushi Naito, who has been
involved in international standardization activities with ITU-Tfor many years, received the MIC Minister’s Award, and Kazuko
Ito, who has contributed to building an inclusive society throughpara-sports using ICT technology, received a Special Achievement
Award. Accomplishment Awards were also given to 18 otherpeople and two organizations, and Encouragement Awards weregiven to 18 people and one organization. Congratulations to all
who received awards. In November and December, the first online
APT training course was also held.
This year, we are anticipating expansion of the nextgeneration 5G commercial services, which were launched lastyear in Japan. With the corona plague, we have strong hopes that
we will solve societal issues and leap toward Society 5.0, through5G and other ICT technologies. There are also plans to hold theOlympics and Paralympics this summer, postponed from last year.
We hope that, with enough preparation, this event anticipated theworld over, will be held, putting the spotlight on all of Japan.
In ITU events, the postponed World Telecom (Vietnam)
is scheduled for October, and WTDC (Ethiopia) is scheduledfor November. It is expected that real events will be difficult,but based on previous experience, we are being flexible withpreparations and cooperating with everyone involved in ITU andAPT meetings and events.
This year, we will reach 50 years since our association wasfounded. I would like to thank all of you for your support, and forthe future, it is my desire to work even harder, to mediate among
all of our members, the Japanese Government, and the ITU.
I wish you all a Happy New Year, and for your health andvitality for the coming year.

■ Celebration of World Telecommunication andInformation Day (October 6, 2020)

New Breeze Winter 2021

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